Fresh from the battle of Washington your correspondent rejoins the fray, exhausted and exhilarated in equal measure. Fifteen minutes of injury time, fantastic, hardly an unblacked eye on the pitch. Goals, bookings, sendings off, accidental, ahem, clashes, incidents galore and at the end a victory, super duper.
It felt a bit like the current squad versus the old boys with no less than eight former RCA players starting for Washy, and a few of us were apprehensive, but in the end the judgement of your management team was upheld, although personally it was a pleasure to be reminded what a footballing one off Joe Walton is. A force of nature, enraged with the opposition, his own team and the world in equal measure. We were clearly the better side, or so I hear, although a failure to convert opportunities made it closer than it should have been. Football in fairly short supply, but plenty of effort and endeavour. A proper derby match in fact, a real good curtain raiser for the event next week, complete with the obligatory annoying kid in the mag shirt shouting stupidities throughout. Where do they get them from?
Anyway, we roll on, a host of games to come. But as to the big boys derby, will Rafa make a difference next week? Obviously we hope not, standard magpie lazy arrogance will do nicely, but a change of manager usually supplies a bounce, it has done for us often enough, will it work for our friends in the North? Maybe, maybe.
I write before the clash of the titans which is Leicester v Newcastle, in which I hope to see a sound thrashing administered by Vardy and co as they bound on towards the title, but something makes me a little nervous. Non league is my first love nowadays but I retain a great interest in the battle of the nonentities when Tyne meets Wear, and I worry, I must admit, I worry. Six on the bounce, superb, can it possibly become the magnificent seven? I dearly, dearly hope so.
Having said that I must confess to a sneaking regard for Rafa, about the best of the foreigners to grace our footballing shores, in my view, excluding Mourinho, who is a one off. He seemed to buy into the scouse view of the world, sadly deluded of course, but admirable in a way. Hopefully he will lose the battle with Big Sam, both short term and long term, and all of us Sunderland clubs can drive on to the sunlit uplands. If only, if only....